Do teachers not mark books anymore?

[Heckythump1]

DD just finishing Y2, brought home all her books yesterday (including some Y1 books that were kept for moderation) not a single thing has been marked? No spellings have been corrected? There's the odd tick here and there, mainly in the maths books.

Is that normal? Her spelling is awful, which I suspect isn't helped by never being told she's spelling the same words incorrectly over and over again!

Let’s swap jobs and see how you get on with your 13 weeks a year holiday. I am sick of the ignorance. Clearly you’ve put this comment as a wind up (surely there are better things to be doing), because if you haven’t, you need to go and spend a bit of time in a school.

No, teachers don't seem to mark books as much as they used to. Please bear in mind they only get 13 weeks holiday a year, and spend a good portion of the time they are meant to be at work having coffee morningsinset days or going on strike as they don't get paid enough. They don't have time to mark books.

What a disgusting comment. Why aren't you a teacher if it's that easy??

Let's break it down:

"For parents and children it just looks like their work was never seen, and the teacher was not interested in their ideas."

• I can see how a parent might think that. The child would know that their work was seen, because they were there. They heard the teacher's praise and their corrections. They saw when their work was shared with the class as an example of something done well.

"There is no record they can see of their progress"
The work shows their progress.

"no response to their efforts other than some things you may have said that they have now forgotten"
They won't remember the exact words, but they will have learnt from them. That's my purpose at work.

"a policy of refusing to give written comments on children's work is unkind."
We'll have to agree to disagree on that. I know how much calmer and kinder I am able to be now with a policy that doesn't dictate I do 4 hours of marking daily. My lessons are better and the children's learning is better.

Nope.
Research says so, experience from countless professionals says so and feedback from the children themselves says so.

Very unkind??!! Oh give over. Tell you what is unkind - not having the time to support children directly after the lesson as you've seen them struggle or give support to vulnerable children or families who need it because you have 100 books to pointlessly tick.

Honestly, children never look back at work in books. There isn't time. Parents might do at parents' evening. So who is the marking actually for?

Thank you to the teachers for responses. I remember being rather amazed that my children's hard work did not seem to have been acknowledged at all! It didn't help that they handed in homework as well. There was no feedback on this until it was handed back crumpled in a folder at the end of year. So much effort treated carelessly. I'm fairly sure it was never even looked at. It didn't help that the teacher couldn't seem to remember my child's name or anything about their interests.

Despite the argument that children respond better to feedback verbally - I don't buy it. What is wrong with both kinds of feedback? It doesn't need to be marked every day. Teachers used to mark homework every week, and any other work was marked in class, by peers or whole class. My children forget what was said yesterday, and psychology tells us that humans focus on the negative. The child will remember verbal corrections more than any praise, and there's no permanent written comments to counteract this. I do not believe that education is any better in England with these changes.

I think marking is also for parents. Don't you ever remember feeling proud of work and showing it to family? It's really important for parents to be involved in their children's progress. Children are not coming to school as isolated units.

I take the point that teachers don't have time to mark, I think that's the most relevant point really. I realise teachers work in a system and must adapt to what management asks of them. I also realise that teachers feel marking is not a good use of time, but I feel it's rather sad and a reflection of how impersonal and mechanical education has become in England. I hope students at secondary do receive written comments on their work.

Nope. Ofsted doesn't give the tiniest shit about marking.

This. My school doesn't ever mark books and just got outstanding.

As PP's have said, book marking just isn't an effective strategy. Much better to target feedback time on what does work.

Agree! DC had been allowed to misspell words in early primary and with certain words continues to do so. If written words are not corrected and never shown the actual spellings they don’t think it is a mistake.

We actually do mark every piece of work in our school but I certainly would not correct every single incorrect spelling. The thing is, of my current KS1 class (30 children) I have 3 children who only make occasional spelling errors. Of the other 27, the MAJORITY of words are spelt incorrectly. If I corrected every single one of these, it’d be so disheartening for the child to look back at their work and see my pen all over it highlighting their mistakes. I normally work with them verbally to get them to correct two key words that they should be spelling correctly.

Incorrect spelling may well be being followed up and the correct versions taught in ways that are not directly visible in their writing books, and that are much less dispiriting and more effective than lots of marking.

So if the teacher sees there is a spelling that is commonly wrong across the class, it nay be pointed out when it next appears in reading. A phonics rule may be revisited in a phonics lesson or a spelling rule in a spelling lesson, with all work on individual whiteboards. It may appear in a future list for spelling homework or be dropped into handwriting practice sessions, and you would only know that if you cross-reference books and homework and worksheets. It may appear on a classroom working wall as a reminder or on an individual or group resource for children to use in their table when writing. An individual’s particular area of weakness may appear in individual targets or be the subject of an intervention, again with all work on whiteboards or in chalk or in sand trays in younger classes.

’Not marked’ doesn’t mean ‘not noticed’ ir ‘not responded to’, and policies that require full written marking of all work are appeasing parents not maximising children’s learning.

Regardless of the marking policies , a teacher constantly not knowing your child's name or what they like/who they are as a person is not ok.

I've seen various marking policies as a TA , and the deep marking (which at one school we had to do for every child in every lesson) often became a tick boxing exercise, that took up hours and the kids barely took any notice of. I know, because I had to chase them for days to answer this green question or correct that thing. So even more time wasted.

Let's say I have a group of 6 children for English. I sit at a table with them and support and read as I and they go. So it's "Great use of sentence starters Amelie, can you add some speech please?" , "James, you forgot paragraphs, please start a new one when you move onto x", " Eliza, reread that sentence and check it makes sense", " Tommy , great work so far, can you add in some adverbs/adjectives please?" , " Suzie , I really like your first paragraph, can you use some conjunctions to expand these two sentences please?". And so on.

Of course I can write all of that down , but it takes time, it interrupts the children and their flow as I need their books to write it in, if I have other children coming in to show me their work, my group then gets no feedback at all for a chunk of time because I'm writing in other children's books and away from their table etc.

If you ask the children how they know they did well 99% of the time they say "I have a pink tick or miss tells me." Even in the schools where we had to write two sentences about what they did well and one for what they could improve.

I mark every single piece of work...as it's our school marking policy. It takes me hours...literally hours. I'm marking until midnight some nights, as there are days when I have an extremely 'book heavy' marking load, and not a single minute during my day in which to get any marking done during the school day (ie I'm on play duty, it's 'my assembly', I'm on gate duty and it's staff meeting after school, all on the same day!!).

Those days I can be taking 120 books home in 3 huge boxes!! This is a regular occurrence at my school.

Some schools use an approach called No More Marking - it doesn't mean the children don't get feedback. It's an approach that's been very well researched and has a fantastic impact on their learning as it's an 'in the moment' verbal feedback approach. I wish my school would adopt it! Maybe your child's school uses this? Ask to see the marking and feedback policy. If it's not some kind of verbal feedback policy like 'no more marking' then there might be an issue with that particular teacher, and then you should definitely bring it up - but in a 'maybe this teacher needs support' way, not in a 'this teacher is shit' way...honestly, our workload is through the roof and teachers are drowning right now. It's killing us. Literally in some sad instances.

@AngryGreasedSantaCatcus Thank you for explaining so clearly. I do see the issues. My father was an English teacher and used to mark after dinner and on the week ends. He taught secondary for 30 years, and loved the job. He did start in the 70s when teaching must have been very different, and taught secondary which Is different to primary of course. I do see what you are saying but I am sorry I can't agree with those who feel marking is unnecessary. I can only agree that a teacher's work seems now so highly pressured that there is no time to write comments on any child's work, in some schools at least.

Just to clarify, feedback is crucial and necessary. Some/fair marking is nice (for parents by the looks of it) and I think it does have it's place , but not vital.A deep marking policy is completely unnecessary.

@AngryGreasedSantaCatcus Yes, I agree with your summary! Hard to find a balance, I think.

If I see children making spelling mistakes I don't correct them I make a note and use it to inform future planning for whole class or small group/ individual intervention. There's often similar words multiple children struggle with. This is much more effective than correcting a word in a book that the child will never look at.

I agree with verbal and immediate feedback as a better learning concept than book marking. But as a parent, I want to see my DC’s books on a weekly basis, so I can help to reinforce learning at home. I want to see where improvements can be made, what they are spelling incorrectly on a regular basis so I can support them at home on specific things. Eduction is a partnership between the parents and teacher. If I don’t see the written feedback, how do I know how to support my DC at home as I’m not present at school to hear the verbal feedback and my 5 yo won’t remember to tell me? I also think spelling should be corrected even if the topic wasn’t about spellings. DC need to know what is correct and incorrect. If I can see the books on a weekly basis, I can see where the spelling is going wrong (even if the topic was adjectives), and I can reinforce at home

It would be very unusual for you to see books on a weekly basis. Normally that happens on parent teacher evening or other open days. Other than that, most parents see the books at the end of the year.

I’ve had the same answers from my son’s school. I don’t think it’s more effective as he still can’t write, spell or read properly. Not giving written comments and praise is unconscionable and lazy, it does not give us parents enough information so we can help our children when they need it. Some of us need to see things visually and repeatedly for them to sink in. Why weren’t we parents consulted about this? Don’t our views count?
Chris BSc (UCL) PGCE (Cambridge)

How often do you actually see your child's books?

@Fretfulmum when do you think you could look at books on a weekly basis, in such depth as you seem to want to?

If your son can’t read what would be the point in giving him written feed back.
Given your qualifications could you not home school?

I think the books should come home every week so they can do a little homework in them. Leaving it until the end of term or a parents evening is too late. I could look at them then. It does not take long to get a good idea of their level. Mine tend to be consistent in the mistakes they make. Because of the pandemic my four sons are about 2 years behind.

I have ended up teaching my kids reading and writing before and after school using a book called Toe To Toe to inform me about the phonics sounds they don’t seem to know. I’ve got magnet letter everywhere and have started them on touchtyping as there handwriting is so bad. I’m teaching my older son for his English Lit GCSE because he does not know a lot of what he should. I’ve only got them for a couple of hours the school has got them all day but seems to let them sit there and not do very much work at all.

I dearly wish I’d home schooled them all but it’s too late now - they see me as a parent not a teacher.

schools it seems are there own private kingdom and they do as they like there without reference to parents / tax payers. It’s always a case of teacher knows best. If the child’s not learning it’s the kids fault not the teachers. I get more info from Tescos than I do my kids schools.

When my books get taken in to have a book look by SLT I would be criticised if I’d written comments such as ‘well done’ and some random ticks - they would say it was unspecific.

Our policy might not be perfect but it has tried to minimise the time it takes for teachers to write comments plus maximise progress. Books are expected to be looked at after every piece so teachers can plan the next steps in their lessons and pick up any misconceptions.

Much feedback is verbal and that is still often a written VF in the book. This is still controversial to write VF as many argue who is that actually for? - certainly not for the child but often for SLT.

That being said I think if you look at our books it is clear they have been looked at and progress in areas such as spelling should be clear. Rather than not being ‘marked’ I would be more concerned you can’t see improvement in your DDs book.

@Fretfulmum have you asked the teacher if you can see the books more often? Personally I would be delighted a parent was taking such an interest to help their child at home.

I used to be happy sending books home for children if their parents asked to see them.

But if they don't come back which is an absolute pain in the arse. Budgets are tight enough as it is without having to replace missing books every week. The logistics of sending 30 books for Maths, English, handwriting, Topic, Science, etc etc is a nightmare.

I don't send them home until the end of the year now. Parents can always look through them at parents' eves to their hearts' content

Have you even considered the logistics of this?
Firstly, kids/parents hauling 7/8 books every Friday afternoon and Monday morning. Then actually keeping track of them all and remembering to return. What do you do when you have several kids whose books are never returned? Never mind replacing them, but then you have no evidence of that child's work or progress. The extra time spent handing them out,collecting them, making sure they're all there,chasing parents etc. We have a bunch of kids whose homework books we have to replace 4/5 times a year, and that's just one book to keep track of.

Secondly, a lot of teachers take books home over the weekend , to mark , to pick up anything missed , for data/ ITAFs , change their planning accordingly etc. Also, a lot of school have their staff meetings/moderations(and hence everyone looks at the books) on a Friday.

Then you have the parents that don't understand the work or method(they exist) so they complain it's been marked wrong / it's pointless. You have the parents that will complain it's too hard or too easy. You have the parents who insist their kid can read Harry Potter so why are they doing basic comprehension questions . You have the parents who will go OTT over every single mistake and the kids afraid to show them their books. You have the parents who don't give a crap.. I could keep going.

If you're worried, talk to the teacher. Ask what the kids are learning that week, look at the curriculum, do the homework with them and check their understanding, read with them, ask what they're putting in place if they need extra support etc.